“The American people will never knowingly adopt Socialism. But under the name of ‘liberalism’ they will adopt every fragment of the Socialist program, until one day America will be a Socialist nation, without knowing how it happened.”

Socialist Party presidential candidate Norman Thomas

Friday, January 16, 2015

Seeing the virgin Mary in french toast should earn me a straight jacket, not a book deal

So the kid who co-wrote with his father, "The Boy Who Came Back From Heaven" which chronicled his "death" while in a 2 month coma, ascent into Heaven, and his conversations with Jesus and even Satan, has recanted his claims and admitted that it was a total hoax.

No kidding.

I am constantly astounded by the whole "heaven tourism" genre of stories, books, and at least one movie, by kids who claim they've been to heaven and back. Ostensibly people believe their charades because they're innocent children incapable of guile.

Trust me, I made stuff up constantly at that age, but not for attention as these kids do, but just to stay out of trouble.

When I was in the second grade we lived in Tifton, Ga. My friend and I were very late coming home so we told his mom that a man had stopped his car, chased us down the alleys behind our houses, and we ran and hid until he left. Instead of being mad, she hugged us, gave us delicious snacks, and a short lecture about strangers. What we omitted from our harrowing tale of survival and pluck, was that he chased us because we pelted his car with crab-apples as he drove by. My point is that kids will make up all kinds of things for all kinds of reasons. It's up to the adults to discern reality from a ripping good yarn.

Getting back to the point, I'm not going to limit God as to how he tantalizes us, but bringing comatose kids up to heaven and then sending them back just doesn't make sense to me.....any more than do Catholics witnessing stigmata and images of Mary in their french toast. It all just seems highly implausible to me.

John 3:13 “And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven.”________________________________________There are 582 places in the King James Bible where the word "heaven" occurs, 505 instances where the word “spirit” appears, and 458 occasions of the word “soul. None of those 1,545 places so much as hints that any of us ever goes to heaven - either at death or at the resurrection.

It is self-evident by your position Isaac. A position which happens to be contrary to the beliefs of like 5 Billion of your fellow Earth dwellers, being that no one goes to heaven and therefor to hell. The only conclusion is that you must not believe in an afterlife.

Without an afterlife, what's the point of religion, to recruit a ready supply of alter-boys to fondle?

1) Why did you appeal to consensus when all you had to do to put me in my place was to point to any Bible passage which promises Heaven? (You don't know one, of course, because none exist.)

2) I couldn't care less what 5 billion uninformed\ill-informed people believe. The Bible clearly teaches that no one goes to Heaven and that's good enough for me.

3) You err in thinking that the alternative to Heaven is hell. According to the Bible no one goes to hell, either. (Not the common perception of hell, anyway.) God nowhere threatens to BBQ humans for a single minute, much less for all eternity.

4) And, yes, I believe in an afterlife. The dead "sleep" (to use the Biblical term) until the resurrection. After that the sheep are separated from the goats. The sheep live forever on an Edenic Earth in healthy, pain-free bodies. The goats will cease to exist.

Of course not. Your post could have intended any of the three meanings. Thank you for clarifying which of the three you meant.

The subject on the table is not just believing in heaven. There are three heavens and I believe in all three of them. But I don't believe that humans ever go to any of the three because our only source of information on the subject, the Bible, says we don't.

Christians (hint, hint) really ought not depend so heavily on other people (lying-ass preachers, mainly) for the fundamentals of their faith. Much of what they are told is not faithful to the only reliable resource on such matters.